This has probibly been said before, but here it goes

[tooocool]

How about you create a mappack by state, that includes all the counties in that state. Keep the individual county mappacks, but also have a larger state mappack for those users who want it.

You might also want to consider using some type of code that automatically checks to see if there is a newer mappack for a given county (or state) and asks you if you want to downoad the new version before using it.

The reason i bring this up is because i travel all over michigan, but it's a hassle to unzip 40 or 50 files (however many counties there are in mi.) instead of having one "super file" per state.

You could even do a US map for the users with lots of space.

Just a thought, please dont flame me for repeating what has probibly been said, but the search feature on these boards is pretty weak

Also, you really do need to increase the zoom, even if you cant make the maps more precise. The reason being is that several ap's on my current map (emmet county, MI) overlap, and it is very hard to get the information. a more precise map (or at least a routine that doesn't put close ap's on top of eachother) would just be a nice thing to have, if it's not too much to ask.

[bobzilla]

The issue is java doesn't handle large images very effeciently, so the images we have push the resident memory up to ~120MB. Every time we add a zoom level it more than doubles. There are better ways to handle this, which we've been working on, but nothing ready for release yet.

[izzy4505]

I might suggest waiting to do this until a better mapping system is in place. The tiling system used by terraserver seems to have been reliable for years now. Maybe wigle could use the same strategy in tiling? Another problem you're bound to have: The DB queries for entire states will return a huge amount of data. Make sure the server(s) and bandwidth can handle it.

One thing that I'm testing in a program I'm writing is loading multiple mappacks at a time. As you scroll, it'll load the next county over [sometimes overlaying, as mappacks overlap]. This could use the current format...possibly as a temporary setup until a tiling system in place. Anyway, maybe you could use this method in the official wigle clients?

[uhtu]

tiling has been discussed for some time now...

at the last WiGLE developer conference, the keynote was about the various strategies for dealing with the scaling up of data in the multiple WiGLE.net clients.

we are investigating a couple of different paths, possibly including a vector client similar to SquiGLE, as that may end up scaling better than raster maps (even tiled ones) for higher detail and adjacent maps; as well as a tiling loader for JiGLE. these things take time and planning, and trying to schedule the international links for everyone on the WiGLE client architecture conference calls is a logistical nightmare. ..that, and we're easily distracted.

queried points all have last-updated tags, which makes doing time-based deltas on the sets very easy despite the linear-per-mappack nature of the data, and they are all gzipped in transit. the raster mappack data is much larger than the point data (and increases drasticly with detail, as bobzilla noted.)

the JiGLE client source is available, and we would welcome contributions for a tiled Mappack loader :-)

[izzy4505]

Lol, one of these days if I get around to learning java, and it hasn't been done already, I'll port some code I've got to it and send it to you.

Just out of curiousity. . . .

What's this WiGLE conference thing you're talking about, and is it possible to get involved in something like that? WiGLE is awesome, and I'd like to contribute somehow.

[uhtu]

heh.
i may have slightly misrepresented the size and scope of the WiGLE dev organization, as i'm prone to hyperbole.

the core wigle team is based here in sunny chicago, with our west coast development group out in california working tirelessly on SquiGLE and TinGLE and other exciting new ways to use the WiGLE dataset.

so, the closest we ever really got to a WiGLE conference was defcon :-)

as soon as there is impetus for a wigle dev organization it will be announced all over the place. in the meantime, if you want to throw your client into the ring, the more the merrier. and there's always wigle-admin [at] wigle.net to bounce questions/ideas off of if you don't want to air them in the forums.

[arkasha]

sign up now and save. special corporate pricing available.

seriously, i'll happily label any visits thudd, wos, or izzy make to chicago as the next world-wide-wigle-development conference. or anyone else willing to write a client, server, server stub, cool filter, or gewgaw. just let us know in advance. i'll buy you cheezeburger. if everyone not already in chicago shows up, i'll front a t-shirt order. it'll be hilarious.

[uhtu]

woo hoo! food!

[izzy4505]

Pick a weekend that works for you guys, and I'll come. I'll bring along some friends too. I've been meaning to go to Chicago just for the heck of it for awhile. How many are you in the Chicago area? I'll bring gifts of Jones' Soda. [the BEST soda in the world for those who aren't familiar with it.]